Учебное пособие для студентов очной формы обучения направлений подготовки

Appendix
 

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There are not many free goods. Outer space, for example, was a free good when the 
only use we made of it was to gaze at it. But now, our use of space has reached the point 
where one use can be an alternative to another. Conflicts have already arisen over the 
allocation of orbital slots for communications satellites. Thus, even parts of outer space are 
scarce. Space will surely become more scarce as we find new ways to use it. Scarcity 
characterizes virtually everything. Consequently, the scope of economics is wide indeed.
(Source: Principles of Microeconomics;http://www.saylor.org) 
 
Text 2 
Crazy for Coffee
Starbucks Coffee Company revolutionized the coffee-drinking habits of millions of 
Americans. Starbucks, whose bright green-and-white logo is almost as familiar as the golden 
arches of McDonald‘s, began in Seattle in 1971. Fifteen years later it had grown into a chain 
of four stores in the Seattle area. Then in 1987 Howard Schultz, a former Starbucks employee, 
who had become enamored with the culture of Italian coffee bars during a trip to Italy, bought 
the company from its founders for $3.8 million. In 2008, Americans were willingly paying $3 
or more for a cappuccino or a latté, and Starbuck‘s had grown to become an international 
chain, with over 16,000 stores around the world.
The change in American consumers‘ taste for coffee and the profits raked in by 
Starbucks lured other companies to get into the game. Retailers such as Seattle‘s Best Coffee 
and Gloria Jean‘s Coffees entered the market, and today there are thousands of coffee bars, 
carts, drive-throughs, and kiosks in downtowns, malls, and airports all around the country. 
Even McDonald‘s began selling specialty coffees.
But over the last decade the price of coffee beans has been quite volatile. Just as 
consumers were growing accustomed to their cappuccinos and lattés, in 1997, the price of 
coffee beans shot up. Excessive rain and labor strikes in coffee-growing areas of South 
America had reduced the supply of coffee, leading to a rise in its price. In the early 2000s, 
Vietnam flooded the market with coffee, and the price of coffee beans plummeted. More 
recently, weather conditions in various coffee-growing countries reduced supply, and the 
price of coffee beans went back up. 
Markets, the institutions that bring together buyers and sellers, are always responding 
to events, such as bad harvests and changing consumer tastes that affect the prices and 
quantities of particular goods. The demand for some goods increases, while the demand for 

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others decreases. The supply of some goods rises, while the supply of others falls. As such 
events unfold, prices adjust to keep markets in balance.
(Source: Principles of Microeconomics;http://www.saylor.org)